The Damned (aka: These Are The Damned, 1963) - the
final sequence of this SF chiller features a pair of Westland S-55 Whirlwind machines, which chase a 'getaway' vehicle speeding down a coast road
and force the car to stop. Crewmen from the helicopters then 'kidnap' a child that had escaped from the secret military bunker. One of the circling
choppers also tracks a motorboat off the Dorset shoreline.

Along with director Joseph Losey's later thriller, Figures In A Landscape (1970),
this British film, produced by Hammer Studios, was instrumental in forming modern cinema's familiar depiction of helicopters as symbols of oppressive
government power.

Dance Of The Dwarves (aka: Jungle Heat, 1983) - director Gus Trikonis relies heavily on chemistry between the stars (Peter Fonda and Deborah Raffin)
in this bizarre comedy-horror about a female anthropologist hiring a drunken helicopter pilot (flying a UH-1 Huey, nicknamed 'the peerless Rita'), to help with her
jungle search for a lost tribe of Filipino pygmies.

Danger: Diabolik (1968) - Mario Bava's comicbook adventure
mixes fantasy and crime with John Philip Law as the titular antihero. During an early chase, the police surveillance helicopter (a Bell 47 with pontoons),
in pursuit of Diabolik's black E-type Jaguar along a coast road, carries a marksman who shoots at the robber's getaway vehicle, and makes it crash into
the sea - but the cunning thief has already switched cars. In addition to the familiar Bell chopper, this sequence - somewhat inexplicably, I think -
features brief shots of another helicopter (without a side door, bigger cabin, enclosed tail boom), the 1960s' Bell 47 J-2, rarely seen in movies.

Dante's Peak (1997) - "the film's heroic US geologists hire a Bell TH-1L Iroquois to fly
them out to the crater of the volcano early in the film to investigate it. Later, when the volcano is actually erupting and spewing thick clouds of
ash into the sky, and the citizens of Dante's Peak are running around willy-nilly in a wild panic, the 'asshole pilot', already established as being
quite a mercenary, offers to fly people out of town, for thousands of dollars per person. Only the town's rich people have that kind of money so they
clamber aboard and the helicopter takes off. Of course, volcanic ash gets sucked into the chopper's engine and the pilot loses control. The 'Huey'
nosedives, hits the ground, then bounces (conveniently flying over the SUV carrying heroes Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton) and sails through the
air where it crashes into a gas station, which violently explodes. - BILL HIERS

The Dark Knight (2008) - this excellent sequel to
Batman Begins features one of the most spectacular urban
helicopter crashes yet filmed. Using a mix of real machine, CGI, and physical effects, a Gotham city police chopper (a Bell 206B, from Sun Aero
Helicopters, Chicago) that's expected to provide air cavalry support for a security transport convoy, is brought down when it flies into cables
above the street, causing it to spin out of control, smash into the front of a building, and hit the ground as burning wreckage in the path of
an armoured vehicle. "That's not good!" exclaims the SWAT van's passenger. The film also features a Eurocopter AS-355N, which appears
during the heroes' mission to Hong Kong, and there's a Bell 430, used by Bruce Wayne for his dramatic arrival to a penthouse party. Before the
climactic scenes, a pair of US Army 'Huey' types fly-by, just to help establish the presence of National Guard troops within the city during a
terrorist crisis.

Dark Skies (1996-7) - this UFO conspiracy sci-fi TV series had the original 'black helicopters'
in several scenes, unmarked black Sikorskys used to transport Captain Frank Bach (J.T. Walsh) and his cronies. - BERND BIEGE

Dave (1993) - in this political comedy, a suitably painted Sikorsky S-61L stands-in for the 'Marine One' presidential helicopter bringing
President Bill Mitchell (Kevin Kline) and First Lady Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver) back to the White House.

Dawn Of The Dead (1979) - George A. Romero's comic zombie
horror movie has SWAT cops and their friends escaping in a helicopter from the beseiged city to an out-of-town shopping mall. Later, in a struggle
with the heroes, one zombie gets killed when the top of his head is sliced off by the whirling rotor blades.

Dawn Of The Dead (2004) - Snyder's remake of Romero's great zombie horror
is enjoyably grisly entertainment, and it features appearances by a couple of helicopters. In one aerial scene, tracking the heroine's car along a
suburban road, a Bell JetRanger swoops into view and banks right, off-screen. Later, when the survivors are holed up in the shopping mall, a mighty
Sikorsky S-80 Super Sea Stallion passes by overhead, but does not respond to SOS messages painted on the building's rooftop.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - this SF disaster movie, about global
warming causing a new Ice Age, features a scene where three helicopters crash in Scotland after the sudden chill of climatic change freezes their
fuel lines. The digital effects used to realise this sequence are not very convincing. In another fairly spectacular, but unimaginative aerial set-piece,
the crew of a TV news helicopter observe a blitz of tornado storms ripping apart some of Los Angeles' landmark buildings.

"For the movie, a fleet of Boeing CH-47 Chinooks was planned for the rescue at the end. The US
Army was helping the production as best it could but, because most of the Army's domestic stocks of Chinooks were overseas at the time, they could
only provide a single machine. All the rest are CGI. Also, for the shots of the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, the US Army helped take apart a Black
Hawk to fit it in front of a blue screen on an indoor set for some of the digital effects shots. Two flying examples of the Black Hawk were also
provided for live-action shots." - NATHAN DECKER

Day Of Atonement (1992) - the villain of this gangster drama kills his enemies by dropping them out of a helicopter, hovering at altitude,
onto the grounds of his estate.

Day Of The Animals (1977) - this nature's revenge thriller (in which solar radiation drives wildlife crazy) by William Girdler has a group
of hikers dropped off in the Sierra mountains by helicopter, just before a regional quarantine is announced.

Day Of The Dead (1985) - chopper flights bookend this last movie in George Romero's original trilogy of zombie classics. The opening flight
scene over a town controlled by the grotesque undead is very creepy. The film's ending sees the Bell 206 JetRanger parked on an idyllic beach.

The Day Of The Triffids (1981) - in the sixth and last episode of this British TV series, adapted from the classic SF novel by John Wyndham,
there's the brief appearance of a Bell 47 (supplied by Bristow Helicopters), which visits the heroes' retreat in a Wiltshire farmhouse before returning
to another group of survivors on the Isle of Wight.

Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961) - a helicopter appears (during the special effects shots) to get aerial press photos of London during the
fog sequence.

Deal Of The Century (1983) - this comedy movie is directed by William Friedkin, and it stars Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver, and Gregory Hines.There's a decent collection of helicopter stars, including two armed MD500s - operated by the stereotypical
South American dictatorship of 'San Miguel', a Bell 206L operated by 'Luckup Industries' as VIP transport, and a Hiller FH1100 traffic news copter,
which somehow survives an attack by the flying star of the film, the 'Peacemaker' (an unmanned combat air vehicle). - ALEX YOUNGS

Death Note 3 - L: Change The World (2008) - after the 'plague' outbreak in a Thailand village, a camouflage-painted Huey (armed with
rocket pods) chases and attacks fleeing survivors. The low-flying chopper hovers in an off-road clearing, halts the pickup truck and then
destroys it (off-screen) in an explosion. Later, there's a MBB/ Kawasaki BK 117 B-1 (licence-built Eurocopter) flying ambulance to medevac a
young boy to hospital.

The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) - in this final spin-off TV movie derived from the popular TV series, a Bell 206L LongRanger hovers
over the airfield scenes during the climactic shootout. When the Hulk falls out of an exploding airplane, just after it takes off, he passes the
airborne helicopter, on his way down to hit the concrete.

Death Race (2008) - this remake of Death Race 2000 (1975) features a pair of Eurocopter AS355 TwinStar gunships, with rocket pods,
chasing final two cars during the hero's off-track escape on the bridge from island prison. The helicopters stop one racer on the mainland dockside
and circle around the vehicle in a shot copied from Birds Of Prey.

Death Race 2 (2010) - in this prequel to a remake,
there's an Aerospatiale 350B Ecureuil hovering above the opening sequence of a prison riot.

Death Race 3: Inferno (2012) - in this action movie sequel, a Eurocopter AS-350B (pictured, left: in a quarry scene at the finishing line)
tracks the lethal progress of weaponised rally cars through the Kalahari Desert. A couple of Aerospatiale SA 330J Puma civilian transports are seen
parked in the hanger of a South African airfield.

Death Watch (1980) - the climactic scenes of this SF drama feature two Bell 206B JetRangers used by British authorities to search Scottish
countryside, on location at Mull of Kintyre, for a couple of missing TV stars.

Deep Blue Sea (1999) - Renny Harlin's thriller about smart sharks has
a medevac chopper brave a heavy storm to get an injured scientist away from the floating bio-lab, but a winch cable snag results in a crash 'n' burn
disaster, trapping the research scientists and other survivors in the underwater complex.

The Deer Hunter (1978) - after breaking out of a Vietnamese prison camp the hero (Robert De Niro) and his fellow escapees are picked up by
a helicopter, but one of them (John Savage) falls into a river. There's also good use of helicopter sound effects in an earlier scene, which tells
us these men's story has shifted from their home town into a war zone.

Defence Play (1988) - in a twist on the plots of Airwolf and Firefox, Russians sabotage a top secret USAF rocket launch, and
steal the hi-tech mini-helicopter called, "Dart," designed especially for recon and scouting missions.

Déjà Vu (2006) - Tony Scott's SF mystery thriller has action scenes using various US Coast Guard, FBI, and New Orleans police
helicopters - including AS-350 A-Stars, and HH-65 Dolphins (AS-365 Dauphin 2), during the ferry disaster sequence, and later for the airboat chase.

Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990) - this action movie sequel has an Aerospatiale SA-360 Dauphin, that is used as a gunship by
the Delta Force operation, and a Hughes 369 (MD-500), operated by the corrupt military general. There are also a couple of Bell UH-1 Hueys in the
movie.

Demolition Man (1993) - the dramatic opening shot of this satirical SF actioner has Sly Stallone's super-cop carried by a paramilitary
helicopter into scenes of Los Angeles on fire.

Demon Of Paradise (1987) - a cheap Filipino remake of Roger Corman's Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961), this horror thriller features
a Bell JetRanger used to pluck a diver from the water.

Demons (1985) - the most absurdly dramatic moment in Lamberto Bava's amusing zombie thriller is when a helicopter (a Bell 206 JetRanger)
unexpectedly crashes through the roof of the cinema, making the survivors dive for cover!

Derailed (2002) - on a hijacked train in Eastern Europe, the bad guys attempt to escape via rope ladder to a low-flying Bell JetRanger (poor
quality green screen visuals), but the helicopter impacts a mountainside when the train enters a railway tunnel. Later, there's stock footage of
a squadron of AH-64 Apache gunships, deployed by military authorities to derail the runaway train when it reaches a bridge. Images of a mighty
Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion feature on the DVD box artwork, but (please note our disapproval!) that helicopter does not appear in this film.

Devil Hunter (aka: El canibal, 1980) - this dreary exploitation horror, by Jesus Franco, includes a failed escape (using an MBB Bo-105C Bolkow) from
the island. When fired upon by a sniper, the pilot and his passenger jump out of the low-flying helicopter - which then drifts away behind a hillside and explodes
off-screen in typically clichéd stunt action.

The Devil's Own (1997) - a British Army SA-342 Gazelle appears in a couple of scenes during the search for IRA terrorists.

Devil's Playground (2010) - this British apocalypse movie with freaky athletic zombies, features a damaged old (Eurocopter) SA 341 Gazelle
intended as the survivors' escape vehicle from London, but the helicopter never gets off the ground.

The Devil's Tomb (2009) - this derivative horror movie features a standard Bell 204 'Huey' used by a handful of soldiers flying on a rescue
mission into a middle eastern desert. The old Huey returns at end of the film to pick-up a lone survivor Curiously, however, it's an out-of-date
helicopter, as only US marines are still using Huey types overseas, where such troops now have the Bell UH-1Y 'Venom' upgrade, which looks slightly
different to this film's chopper.

Dhoom 2: Back In Action (2006) - this Bollywood sequel to action movie Dhoom (2004), starts with a thief skydiving from a Bell 206L-3
Long Ranger III to rob a train in the Namibian desert. There's also a low-flying Bell 206 used by police to chase a bad guy through streets of Mumbai.
Later, a police helicopter (Russian Mil Mi-8 Hip) pursues the pair of anti-hero protagonists along a mountain road. The chopper lands to deploy
motorbike cops to follow suspects into a tunnel, but the runaway duo jump their bikes over the Hip, via the ramp of a car-transporter lorry parked
at the tunnel's exit, and then a bomb dropped from the briefly airborne bike onto the cops' helicopter, destroys it in a big explosion. (Although
this stunt sequence was set in Brazil, it was actually filmed in South Africa.)

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) - set in Dulles airport, this action sequel features a pair of Hueys that carry a US Army special forces team
into the area, when hi-tech terrorists seize control of landing aircraft. Later, there's a low-flying TV news chopper (Aerospatiale AS350-B) that
pursues a Boeing 747 cargo jet down the runway and prevents some bad guys from escaping. The hero (Bruce Willis, reprising his role from the original
movie) jumps out of the A-Star helicopter onto the wing of the plane.

Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) - "the heroes ride in a medevac Bell 206L-3 LongRanger
at the end of the film, whilst the villain has a Gazelle that flies too close to some power-lines." - BILL HIERS

Die Rettungsflieger (aka: The Air Rescue Team, 1996-2007) - this German TV series is about an SAR unit based in Hamburg. Following a TV-movie
intro, its 108 episodes spanned 11 seasons, with a regular flight crew of the main cast changing over the years of production. The featured helicopter is a Bell UH-1D.

Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010) - this low-budget monster movie is a genre sequel to Dinocroc (2004), and Supergator (2007).
Two CGI/ virtual Chinook transports fly over the harbour scene (on Hawaiian locations), but the real helicopters in this movie are two Aerospatiale
AS350-B2 flights (Safari Helicopters) that take-off outside the hanger on a Kauai
island airfield. One of the A-Star choppers has a FLIR camera rig loaded to help with the heroes' aerial search for two giant creatures on the rampage.
The DVD box artwork shows a pair of Apache gunships (as pictured) but they do not appear in this movie.

Dinoshark (2010) - this monster movie, about a giant prehistoric fish, was produced for TV by Roger Corman, and filmed on locations in Mexico.
One scene features a CGI helicopter (Eurocopter EC-135) snatched from its low-hovering position and pulled down in the creature's jaws, where it is
destroyed underwater (exploding off-screen) and sends up a cloud of black smoke. In reference to Jaws, the hero remarks: "You're gonna
need a bigger helicopter.""

The Diplomat (aka: False Witness, 2009) - this TV mini-series of two 90-minute movies, ends with a Eurocopter AS-350, which lands at
the seafront in Sydney, where the hero confronts some Russian mobsters. The helicopter takes off, just seconds before police arrive, and the A-Star
flies away from the port, along Australian coastline, intending to flee the country. Although fighter jets are scrambled to intercept the villains'
getaway flight, a suitcase nuke aboard the helicopter is detonated over international waters, resulting in a mushroom cloud over the sea.

Dirty Harry (1971) - in this cop thriller directed by Don Siegel, there's a Bell 206 flying inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) to
a San Francisco helipad, and then the police helicopter goes on daylight patrol over the city, where the JetRanger's crew spot a sniper on a
high-rise building. The helicopter swoops down to scare the psycho killer off the rooftop, but the cops lose track of him.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) - Vic Morrow is the top cop in this chase movie's helicopter pursuit of a gang of thieves' getaway car,
using low-flying stunts in a Bell 206 JetRanger, while attempting to force the Dodge Charger of ex-racing driver (Peter Fonda) off the road.

Dog Soldiers (2002) - in early scene of this British low-budget action-horror movie, a helicopter (an Agusta A-109 Power) drops off some troops in the
Scottish highlands, for a special military training exercise that ends with many deaths when the soldiers are attacked by local werewolves.

Doom (2005) - director Andrzej Bartkowiak's sci-fi actioner based a
popular shoot 'em up video game, features a hi-tech super-helicopter in a brief CGI sequence, transporting a squad of space marine commando types
from their home base to a teleportation portal.

Doomsday (2008) - this sci-fi action thriller features an Army 'Huey' type helicopter, used for the military retreat from Scotland. Next,
there's an Agusta A119 Koala, which carries the heroine (Rhona Mitra) northwards from London. Later, the new Prime Minister flies, with troops,
in an Aerospatiale SA 321J Super Frelon (armed with a door gun), for a meeting with the heroine. Finally, a battered Chinook transport airlift
flies over the ruined city of Glasgow.

Do Or Die (1991) - this Andy Sidaris adventure features
a helicopter attack on the heroines' jeep, which is dealt with by an anti-aircraft rocket launched from a walking stick gizmo! The movie also has
a visit to a quarter-scale model plane airshow, featuring a nifty 'air cavalry' gunship.

Double Identity (2009) - set in eastern Europe, the plot this espionage thriller owes a debt to Alfred Hitchcock's classic North By Northwest
(1959), as an American doctor (Val Kilmer) is mistaken for a spy in Bulgaria.

A pair of Mil Mi-24 'Hind' gunships appear on the DVD box artwork, but there are no helicopters in the movie.

There's no debriefing before its rapid induction into Rotary Action's HALL OF SHAME.

Dragon Ball (1986-9) - in a 1987 episode, A Real Bind, of this Japanese cartoon series, a Red Ribbon army helicopter is destroyed in midair by a
character's power-pole weapon. Another episode sees the Red Ribbon military forces arriving in several helicopters.

Dreamcatcher (2003) - Lawrence Kasden's film of the Stephen King novel,
concerns four psychic heroes fighting off an extraterrestrial invasion of Earth, and features a spectacular helicopter air strike by Apache gunships
against the crashed alien spaceship. In a later scene, a crazy military chief (Morgan Freeman) pilots a Hughes 500 armed with a machinegun, and
strafes the wooded grounds of a reservoir station to shoot another soldier (Tom Sizemore), but the chopper is hit by return fire, so it crashes and
explodes (off-screen).

Dreamscape (1983) - this sci-fi psychic thriller features a briefly seen Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter as transportation for the President
of the United States.

Drive Hard (2014) - in this Australian comedy-thriller, a police helicopter (Bell 206 JetRanger) flies over the scene of a bank robbery, and re-appears over the Gold Coast shoreline.

Later, there's a Eurocopter EC-120B Colibri that lands in a field where the bad guys have a car waiting. A Colibri helicopter also appears on the movie poster.

Drop Zone (1994) - this action movie is directed by John Badham, and it stars Wesley Snipes. The featured helicopter is a Bell 206B JetRanger
that lands on a boat in Miami harbour.

Dune (1984) - no helicopters appear in David Lynch's magnificent space adventure, but this film has a rare screen appearance for an ornithopter
flying machine based on flapping wings instead of rotor blades.

Frank Herbert's
Dune (2000) - a TV serial remake of Lynch's epic SF drama features even more
screen time for winged 'thopters than the original movie, and these bird-wing style flying machines are realised with first class digital effects
for the aerial scenes.

Sequel miniseries Children Of Dune (2003) continues the space opera and
features yet more superb CG visual effects of airborne golden ornithopters.

Dus (2005) - this overlong and tiresomely macho Bollywood action thriller, features a brief helicopter stunt during the operatic finale in
Canada, as one of the super-cop heroes drives a car-bomb away from the stadium, and gets airlifted to safety from the moving vehicle, just before the runaway
jeep falls into a ravine and promptly explodes.